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The threat the North Vietnamese posed to America was minimal.

First, the threat posed to America by international communism was immense. Second, Podhoretz is simply making the point that the Vietnamese War was a popular intervention which was nonetheless undone by a tiny but determined and critically situated minority. He is simply warning us that if it happened then it could happen again. Indeed as he points out, there are already signs that the anti-America crowd aren't even waiting for a decent interval to begin their effort to undermine our resolve.

Many already seem more concerned about offending Muslims than defending ourselves notwithstanding that this attack occurred in America. His analogies are on target.

Podhoretz is simply making the point that the Vietnamese War was a popular intervention which was nonetheless undone by a tiny but determined and critically situated minority

That's BS. When America realized it was a political war and we we were not out to win it did popular opinion change. When it was learned that the US would not bomb Hanoi, Haiphong Harbor, or the Red River dikes the tide changed. The war had no foreseeable end. And day after day body bags came back to America. In '65 or '66 I read an article in the US News and World Reports how the war could be won in 2 weeks (there were many other sources that said the same thing). No it wasn't some small committed vocal minority that turned the tide is was LBJ who promised the war machine a war without victory. Average Joe 6 pack did not liston to the nutzoid commie pinkos rioting and looting that changed his mind about the war, it was the truth.

His analogies are on target......I agree with you completely. People forget that much of the impetus for our becoming involved in Vietnam came from the outrage engendered by reports in this country of the terrorist campaign carried out on the South Vietnamese by the North Vietnamese (nobody was fooled because they called themselves Vietcong) - the bombs placed in Siagon restaurants with second blasts set to go off twenty minutes later just as rescuers gathered, etc., etc. - we actually believed Kennedy's promise to "go anywhere, pay any price.....", and, just to be provocative, IMO Vietnam is among the most "moral" (to the extent that word can be applied to any conflict) wars we ever fought, precisely because there was little immediate self-interest in the sacrifices we made (See Podhoretz's book Why We Were in Vietnam)
The public was squarely behind Vietnam going in. The anti-war types never did succeed in turning the majority of Americans against the war, but they made it difficult enough politically for leaders that they couldn't really fight all out as it should have been fought. It's ironic today to hear some of those who opposed the war accuse Nixon of "betraying Vietnam." These are the same people who practically tore the country apart when Nixon finally went into the NVN sanctuaries in Cambodia as should have been done years earlier, who were outraged when he bombed real military targets in North Vietnam after they had been offlimits for years, who made Nixon walk the tightrope between trying to end the war quickly enough to avoid as many tantrums in the streets of America as he could but with enough time to allow South Vietnam to become as strong and self-reliant as possible. They're not rational types and I'm with you in hoping that their influence during the current crisis remains much less than it was during Vietnam......